In almost all of my past articles I have described many different types of solar power systems, but did not go into detail on how to install them yourself, since most systems should be sized and wired by licensed solar professionals. However, the Backwoods Home website continues to receive many e-mail questions related to smaller do-it-yourself solar projects for remote weekend or vacation cabins in areas not served by power lines. Otherwise—don't try this at home. I am staying with all 12-volt DC equipment which has a limited shock hazard and allows using many of the electrical components you can find locally.
The Wood 103. This page is all about a rather silly, quick project where in about 1 day I built a small wind generator using the following items, and nothing else.... (1) Wood (2) Copper wire (3) Surplus Neodymium magnets (4) Dirt (5) 10" piece of 3/8" steel shaft (6) Two bolts, but these are optional. ...and that's all, unless we count glue, and linseed oil which I used for finishing.

Pictured above is one of the magnets I used. Above you can see the armature for the alternator. Pictured above you see the wooden pillow block bearings. The stator, on which the coils are wound was cut from two pieces of 2" X 4" lumber. I dragged a magnet around in the dirt of my driveway, so that it would attract the magnetite sand. The dirt was mixed with epoxy, so that I had a thick paste.

Solar Slab. Using large super-insulated water tanks to inter-seasonally store solar hot water is popularly known as the Sonnenhaus concept in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Great Information, Thanks for sharing – nakedenergy

The water tanks vary in size from 40,000 litres for a standard house to up to 200,000 litres for apartment buildings and usually cost between £1.50-£2.00/litre. Sonnenhause owners boast heating bills 50% lower than the occupants of Passive Houses. The Solar panels and Water tank can be a costly addition to the construction budget and they can take up quite a bit of room.

In order to explore this concept a super-insulated 10,000L Hydro Thermal Energy Store (below) was connected to 24m2 of Solar tubes in Cork in 2008, this reduced the clients heating/hot water bill by 65%. 24m2 of drain-back solar thermal tubes heat the water in the tank which reaches over 90 degrees most summers. A 12V PV powered pump fills the drain-back solar tubes with water when the sun shines, so there is no need to use antifreeze.
Tesla's Big Mistake?
While experimenting with a long, thin 'secondary' coil from a Tesla Coil, I suddenly connected up several things in my mind which had been separate up to that moment.

After years of messing with Tesla Coils, I finally see what Tesla was up to with single wire transmission, with resonant coils, and with longitudinal waves. See if the following doesn't make sense. If we wrap a single-layer coil of wire upon a very long plastic tube, we have a Tesla resonator as in Fig 1 above. In essence, this is an an electrical transmission line. We can inject AC into one end using a little primary coil wrapped around. Now we put a metal sphere on either end to prevent corona from spewing out of the dangling wire tips, and we've built a simple electrical power system.

I am an astronomer and wanted a place to practice my hobby far away from the sky-wrecking light pollution found near cities of any real size. In my attempt to escape city light pollution, I found a great piece of remote property. The problem is, it's so remote that there is no electric service available. That's not really a problem. No electricity equals no light pollution. I built a wind turbine to provide some power on the remote property.

These solar panels also specially designed for use in sailing boats, green houses, cars, radios, recreational vehicles, portable televisions, warning lights, flash lights, garden lights, house light, garage lights and ventilators for rooms and cars.
One Per Cent: Grid-scale battery could keep going and going...
Hal Hodson, technology reporter We need a big battery for when the sun doesn't shine (Top Photo Corporation/Rex Features) A new battery technology may pave the way for cheap, long-lived power storage that can quickly pump electricity into the grid to compensate for fluctuating renewables like wind and solar.

Developed by Yi Cui and colleagues at Stanford University in California, the battery's key advantage is its electrodes, which can run for a thousand charge cycles without degrading. Battery electrodes typically degrade over time as ions in a battery cell repeatedly slam into them and are ripped away again. By coating the negatively charged cathode in copper hexacyanoferrate and using an anode made of activated carbon and a conductive polymer - compounds that allow electricity-carrying ions to move easily in and out - the team were able to build a prototype battery with electrodes that didn't lose capacity over time. (Image: Business Wire)
Sustainable design, zero energy passive solar green home HTM high thermal mass holistic housing consultation packages for the earthhome do-it-yourselfer.

With over 20 years of experience, we are the original zero-energy green home building company!

Sustainable design, zero-energy, passive solar homes are free from mechanical climate control systems for truly independent living. Our website is packed with loads of valuable free information, so please take the time to read all of this passive solar chapter and all of the many detail pages. Learn why high thermal mass (HTM™) dry stack block, mortared concrete block, or poured-in-place concrete wall construction is a much better answer than super-insulated (high R value) air-tight construction for ANY climate. Conventional stick framing, log homes, strawbale houses, autoclaved aerated concrete construction, and especially insulated concrete forms ICF's are simply not feasible, passive solar, sustainable design materials because they don't effectively store and release energy.

HTM construction homes will function just fine in any climate, anywhere in the world.
Atlantic Canada Solar Directory. Power Strength & Energy Solutions Ltd is a renewable energy company utilizing the latest technologies to bring about the most efficient use of the sun's energy for residential and commercial applications.

These applications include solar thermal for domestic hot water and space heating, wood stoves/boilers, wood chip boilers, pellet stoves/boilers, photovoltaic for electrical energy generation and LED lighting. We combine solar thermal collectors and wood boilers/wood gasification boilers which is a great marriage. Our principals have over 30 years experience in the fields of renewable energy. We bring this experience and expertise for the advancement of clean, safe renewable energy systems. As a Professional Energy Manager we can run calculations and Energy Audits for energy efficiency projects. We design and install systems to strict and safe standards in accordance with local code requirements.
Solar Water Heating Projects and Plans. Solar water heating systems have a good economic payoff, and are manageable systems to install or build as a DIY project.

Some of the solar water heating designs are very simple and low cost. You can save as much as $7000 by building your own system. There are just over one hundred projects with full construction details listed below -- all free. The projects range from simple batch heaters for warm climates through closed loop and drain back systems that will work in any climate. One of the systems is our own $1,000 solar water heating system that has provided a solar fraction in excess of 90% through our cold Montana winter. My thanks to the people who have built systems, and then taken the time to send in pictures and descriptions for others to use.
Prices drop - GreenergyStar Grid Tie Inverter, Grid Power III 600W, For Solar & Wind Hybrid Systems.

These units work by pulling cool air from a room, passing it through a panel of aluminum cans that are heated by the sun, and blowing the heated air back into the room. Just about anyone can make one of these heaters, and they can be constructed from mostly recycled materials. This is a fairly simple project for DIY’ers that can be used to heat a home, a greenhouse, a camper, a garage, a cabin, or just about anything else you can think of. Once the unit is built, all you need is an outside wall for it to sit against that will get plenty of sun. As long as the sun is shining, you will have free heat with little to no maintenance costs. Comments. Turning soda cans into solar heating panels.

Brilliant Newfoundlander Invents the Solution!
DIY Passive Solar Water Heater- Vol. 2. DIY Solar Projects Part 2: Simple All-In-One Solar Water & Space Heater. One of the biggest challenges people face when looking to incorporate solar systems into their homes is the cost. The systems themselves, although (slowly) becoming more affordable, are expensive when purchased commercially and the installation costs can be even more so.

DIY solar projects are a great way to take advantage of the free energy provided by the sun for a fraction of the price of a manufactured system.
Before You Go Solar – READ THIS. DIY Solar Water Heater For About $30 In PVC Supplies And Paint. Did you know that 70% of your home energy cost are on water heating?
Build a Simple Solar Heater.